During September and
October this year the NETWORK AGAINST SEX TOURS hosted the
speaking tour in Australia of CECILIA HOFMANN, the
Secretary of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Asia-Pacific and MELVIE GALACIO the Coordinator of
Bukluran ng Kababaihan sa Lansangan (Association of Street
Walkers). ANTHONY BROWN, co-producer of the 4ZZZ Radio
program BRISBANE LINE, taped this interview with
Cecilia and Melvie on September 26.

Anthony: What's the situation for
women generally in the Philippines?

Melvie: Women are treated badly
in the Philippines. Women are looked down upon by men, and
many women see themselves as being much lower status than
the males.

Cecilia: One of the indications
of how women fare in the Philippines is in the large
numbers of Filipino women who work abroad - about a
quarter of a million leave the country every year to look
for work - which tells us that there are not many good
jobs, not too many options for women in the Philippines.
The poor treatment of women is graphically demonstrated
when you review the cases of violence against women - the
numbers of which are very high. There are lots of
battering of women in intimate relationships, lots of rape
cases, every few hours there's a rape case, lots of incest
cases. These are just some indications.

Anthony: Does the way that
women are viewed in Philippine society relate to the fact
that many Filipino women end up in prostitution?

Cecilia: Very often in the
Philippines if a women has experienced sexual violence, it
will so shatter her sense of self worth that she will be
very easy prey for people who say, "Come and work in this
club," or a pimp who says, "You might as well earn money
on the streets, you're damaged goods anyway." The bars and
clubs display signs saying, "Wanted sexy dancer, no
references required, no experience needed." When there are
few options, that kind of employment becomes one.

Anthony: So, many women are
forced into prostitution because of socio-economic
factors?

Melvie: Yes, in the Philippines
that is true because, as Cecilia said, there's no work
opportunities for women. There is also discrimination in
wages. Women receive only 47 cents to a peso of what men
earn for the same work done.

Cecilia: A lot of women are
underemployed or unemployed. And there are a lot of women
in the informal economy - which means that they are taking
in laundry, cooking food and selling, doing a lot of
vending, working as household help - very poor jobs. For
prostitution not to be an option there have to be
attractive jobs offered to women, and that's not happening
in the Philippines.

Anthony: Melvie, you work with
women involved in street prostitution in Quezon City in
Manila. Could you describe what you do?

Melvie: We're helping the women
to put up an organisation for themselves that is run by
themselves too. We do that by organising the women,
visiting them three times a week. We conduct education on
women's situation and gender relations, and we provide
some services for the women. We also visit the women in
jail.

Anthony: What is life like for
these women?

Melvie Galacio of BUKAL
(Photo: Jean Balson)

Melvie: The women in the
streets face many problems. They are all at times at risk.
They are at risk from the police officers who arrest them
for vagrancy and the manner of arrest is really
dehumanising. The police just push the women and grab
their hair, uttering degrading words.

Anthony: How much money do
these women earn?

Melvie: We cover two streets
where the women earn as low as 50 pesos ($2.50). In
another area they can get as high as 400 pesos, but then
25 percent goes to the pimps. So it's really not very much
money for the women and there are times when they don't
get any customers at all.

Anthony: Do many have children?

Melvie: Lots of the women have
children and even if they don't have children, they are
often the breadwinners of their families.

Anthony: Do you come across
many women who are on drugs?

Melvie: Ninety percent of the
300 women we've met to date are on drugs. They say they
take drugs because they want to forget, they want to blur
what is happening during the night. Also, because they
have to stay awake during the night, the drugs help them.
Most of the time it is the customers who give drugs to the
women. Then they get addicted into it and whatever they
earn goes to drugs.

Anthony: What's the prevalence
of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases among the
women?

Melvie: Not one woman will say
that she has not experienced contracting STDs. But, there
is not good monitoring for those who are HIV positive or
have AIDS and the government's support system has
problems. However, there are organisations that offer free
HIV checks and we encourage regular checkups. Our
organisation hasn't the money to offer financial support.
We can give moral support, but not financial.

Anthony: You've said that many
of the women are under 16 - they are, in fact, children.
How do children end up being prostitutes?

Melvie: The women we meet on
the streets are mostly in their teens and there are some
who are only 13 years-old. They end up in prostitution for
so many reasons. Maybe 90 percent of the women we've met
have experienced sexual abuse and incest during their
childhood.

Anthony: What kind of future is
there for these children?

Melvie: The women we meet on
the streets are mostly in their teens and there are some
who are only 13 years-old. They end up in prostitution for
so many reasons. Maybe 90 percent of the women we've met
have experienced sexual abuse and incest during their
childhood.

Anthony: What kind of future is
there for these children?

Cecilia: I'd like to add
something about the children on the streets. Manila is a
city that might have about 4 million people in squatter
communities and slums. These are people who have come to
the city because of the extremely unbalanced economic
situation of no development in the countryside. There are
large populations of urban poor families under great
pressure living in communities which are often very
disorderly with high levels of violence. To flee the
violence in their communities or in their own homes, or
else to contribute to the family income, children will
very often go vending on the streets and they will be
preyed upon by pimps or other people. There was, for
example, a six year-old girl selling flowers who talked
about jeepney drivers who would offer to buy her a
hamburger - a big treat for a street child. But,
afterwards she would be taken to a room somewhere,
sexually abused and then given money. These are vulnerable
children who will either simply be used by men who see
them as easy prey or by more organised child prostitution
rings.

Anthony: What are the laws in
place to protect women and children in the Philippines —
what about rape and sexual abuse laws?

Cecilia Hofmann of CATW-AP
(Photo: Jean Balson)

Cecilia: There is a law called
the Child Protection Act passed in 1994 which talks about
child prostitution. It makes the pimp and the client
legally liable. It is hardly ever enforced, hardly
implemented. There is a politician in the Philippines, a
member of the Lower House of Congress, who is sitting in
jail today because he was in the habit of buying under-age
children for sex and one of the children complained. But,
the way things are going, it looks like he might get off
the hook.

The laws are hardly implemented because
street children and children in prostitution don't have a
lobby, they're not a political force, they're negligible,
so they have very little protection. The rape law has just
been changed after five years advocacy by women's groups,
of which we were a very active part. It's a little better
today in its scope. But incest for example, is not named
in law although it happens very frequently. And the
prostitution laws are bad. The law says that it is women
who are prostitutes and when the police want to clamp
down, they can never think of anything else other than
arresting and putting lots of women in jail.

Anthony: And this is Filipino
society's view of women?

Cecilia: Well, I'm sure it's
not just Filipino society. The commodification of women is
pretty well advanced here in Australia too, it would seem.
I believe some labour groups and the ACTU have recognised
women in prostitution as a labour sector.

Anthony: Melvie, are most of
the clients of the women you work with Filipinos or
foreigners?

Melvie: Most of the clients of
the women in the streets are Filipinos. But in one area
where we work, there are lots of recruiters who look for
women to work in Angeles, though they don't know they are
going to work in brothels. Lots of foreigners visit
Angeles City and 80 percent of the establishment owners
are Australians.

Anthony: I understand
Australian men do not have a good reputation in the
Philippines, is that right?

Cecilia: We have received
reports from Australia about Filipino wives of Australians
experiencing a considerably higher rate of violence. In
Angeles City and in other parts of the Philippines where
Australians have established resorts, or bars, or dive
shops, it is known that they employ women who will be
offered as commodities to the clientele who are often also
Australian.

Anthony: Our perception is that
Australians don't get involved in crime.

Cecilia: In 1995 when 14 women
from Australia and one from New Zealand came to the
Philippines to look into the involvement of Australians in
the sex tourism industry, two federal police
representatives, during a meeting with Australian embassy
officials, told us they were aware of drug trafficking
activities, they were monitoring Australians wanted in
this country who were hiding out in the Philippines, and
they were monitoring the activities of the establishment
owners Melvie mentioned earlier. Therefore there is a
level of criminality, surely.

Anthony: Would you agree that
the Philippines is promoted in western countries as a
place to go for sex?

Cecilia: Oh yes. The World
Sex Guide mentions Angeles City very prominently. It
says go to this or that club, "the girls are pretty,
they'll give you a good time", there are "cherry" girls -
this is the term for virgins in that city. It also tells
you to stay away from certain clubs, "the girls are not
enthusiastic," etc. It tells you how much to pay, how much
you shouldn't pay, "don't let the women fleece you", "make
sure you get all the services you deserve as a paying
customer." The Philippines figures prominently in
publications and on the Internet too, not only for sex
tours but also for brides. There's a site which advertises
"Filipino Dream Wives" and has attached a bride order
form. You just put in your credit card number and the
business can get started.

Anthony: As Filipino women,
does that make you angry?

Cecilia: It makes us angry not
only as Filipino women but also for women in general. On
the trafficking map we produced for the Women's World
Conference in Beijing, you will see that it's not just
Filipino women, it's women from everywhere and anywhere,
it's women even from eastern Europe. As soon as there are
difficult political or economic conditions, or if migrant
women are in situations of illegality in the countries
where they are, if they are divorced and not able to find
work, or if they are fleeing violence, they will be
vulnerable. Today, the trafficking, the buying and selling
of women for prostitution, is an extremely profitable
global industry and this tells us that there must be
millions and millions of buyers out there making this
industry grow.

Anthony: What do you think this
says about First World attitudes to Third World countries
and especially about the attitude to women from Third
World countries?

Cecilia: It obviously says that
women from Third World countries are cheaper commodities -
you can get more for the same money. But, it says most
about attitudes to women in general. I think what we're
seeing today is also a result of the sexual liberation
movement in the 60s, which was very necessary for women
because women, as I think everyone realises, were really
very controlled, very oppressed by world religions, by
cultural traditions, by laws, etc. So that women's
movement towards greater sexual autonomy, greater sexual
expression was necessary in the 60s. What has happened
however, is that patriarchal capitalism latched onto this,
realising there's big money to be made from women who are
looking to be sexually liberated. This sexual liberation
has also simply increased men's access to women. And I
think what you see in most countries of the world today,
is a sexual liberal attitude that says, "so what's the
fuss? sex can be a commodity, sex can be work, sex can be
the object of transactions." However, sexuality has lost
its value as human intimacy. It has lost its value as a
deep communication between people. And, this is happening
in a context of still very unequal power relationships
between men and women. It is not true in underdeveloped
countries, nor even in developed countries, that women are
now totally equal. Sexuality is still happening in a
context of inequality.

Anthony: Would you agree that
prostitution is really a human rights violation?

Cecilia: I think prostitution
is an extreme discrimination against one group of human
beings - women - who are presumed to have to provide sex
for another group - men. This is obviously not a situation
of gender equality. This is an idea, a very old and useful
idea for the male population - that men need this, men
have a sexual drive that must be met. This is the myth
that a lot of us grew up with and some still continue to
accept. But today, many people understand that even
sexuality is socially constructed. That means that
culture, tradition, the media, contribute to ideas of what
sex should be. This is also an area of hope, because it
means we can make changes if we want to. If we look at the
issue of trafficking, and it is important to link the two,
we see millions of women and girls around the world being
trafficked, kidnapped, deceived, sometimes persuaded with
big money into prostitution situations, and you can see
that something's not quite right if it has to go through
this system of coercion. It is definitely a human rights
violation because when they are trafficked, the women are
kept confined, they are in a situation of sexual slavery.
But, even if they are not being coerced, if they are in
developed countries such as Australia, by choice in a
situation of prostitution, it is still not their sexuality
that is being expressed, it is still men's sexuality that
is privileged in prostitution and we believe that this is
a case of discrimination.

Anthony: How can we respond to
change the situation?

Cecilia: Like all attitude
changes, it has to start with people wanting to think
about it, with a lot of education, with a lot of
discussion. This is a problem of the same difficulty as
attitudes of racism and different forms of discrimination
against certain people. I think sexuality is an area that
has been little explored and little discussed except in
feminist circles. Women very early on identified sexuality
as a site of women's oppression. Think about this point:
Do we want every human experience to be the object of
buying and selling? There are many issues like this we
really need to think about. Education and reflection can
help us towards what we would like to imagine one day - a
world without prostitution, a world without racism,
without slavery, etc.

Anthony: Have you benefited
from this Australian tour?

Melvie: The tour has become a
vehicle wherein the discussions about prostitution and
sexuality of women have again revived. And we have gained
from this tour through visiting the services provided in
Australia for women in violent situations and seeing how
the women are supported.

Cecilia: This kind of
experience is always very encouraging for us because these
problems are so grim and so heavy that you can get
discouraged at times, especially in countries like the
Philippines where the hardships are so visible. But on
occasions like this, when you meet other women who are
working on these same issues, thinking about these same
issues, it gives you hope for change. It's most important
that we keep discussing these things. It's also good for
us to know there is, in fact, a worldwide movement of
women and men - fewer men I'll admit, we'd like more men
to be part of this - reflecting on issues of gender
relations.

Anthony: Do you have a specific
message for Australian men about changing attitudes
towards women?

Cecilia: Attitudes are so
entrenched that part of a holiday is buying sex - one
spends little money for a nice beach, warm weather and sex
which is so easy to get. The Philippines has an official
policy of welcoming tourism which the non-government
organisations are not too happy about because of the
consequent environmental damage and because the meeting of
very poor, very needy people, with people who are
apparently much better off, is always a problematic one.
We'd like to see attitude changes that will no longer look
upon women, girls and little boys, in any country, as
commodities. It is very easy to deny a full humanity to
someone whose skin is a different colour, who is younger
and therefore relatively less assertive, less powerful.
There is a need to rethink attitudes of respect for the
people of the countries we visit.

Anthony: How effective is our
law against paedophilia in preventing Australian men from
having sex with children in the Philippines?

Cecilia: So far, there's been
one case that was prosecuted and one paedophile was
sentenced. I think that law is very good and very useful.
Australia was one of the first countries to pass such a
law. But I don't know that it will have an immediate
effect on prevention until the population here and in the
Philippines see that it is really systematically
implemented. There needs to be more cooperation and
exchange of information. And, because this law depends
upon complaints being filed in the Philippines, we need to
do our bit also to make sure that people are empowered to
file complaints. In the Philippines people are scared of
filing complaints, because they can be bought off, they
can be killed. But at least a law like that sets a
standard. However, we are unhappy about it for the reason
that this law protects a girl under the age of 18, but if
she's 18 years-old she's no longer protected, and we think
that the legal age tells us nothing about the
vulnerability of a girl of 18 who may be from a rural
family, who may be very poor, very needy. It's a weakness
in that law that we are only willing to protect children,
while young women and older women are not protected.

BUKAL is an APHEDA
project partner sponsored by the Australian Liquor
Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union

You can make a tax-deductable donation
to BUKAL through
APHEDA, (the Humanitarian Overseas Aid Agency of the
ACTU,)
Trades Hall Box 3,
4 Goulburn Street, Sydney 2000.

Melvie Galacio spoke
about the work of BUKAL (Association of Street Walkers):

In The Philippines we are facing real
big issues. We have problems of environmental degradation,
population, pollution, etc. Poverty is a very big problem
and you can readily see the disparity between the wealthy
and the poor. Also, the women's movement is faced with the
big issue of prostitution. There are some 300,000 women
and girls in prostitution and UNICEF estimated 75,000
prostituted children.

There are many forms of prostitution in
the Philippines. There are entertainment establishments
for the wealthy like where the politicians go, and for the
poor there are clubs and bars with just a dirt floor.
There are also men's clubs and massage parlours which are,
in fact, prostitution dens. There is prostitution going on
in evacuation centres wherein men recruit women to work in
bars. There is also prostitution for sailors — we call it
"akyat barko" which literally means "go up the ship" . But
the most pitiful form of prostitution is the street
prostitution.

We are working in just two streets in
Quezon City, (Quezon Ave, Delta and EDSA, Cubao). In over
14 months now, we have met 300 women in the streets who
range from 13 to 47 years-old.

Most of the women we have met are
between 13 to 20 years-old and they started during their
early teens. Most are homeless. They stay in squatter
areas or cheap hotel rooms when they have money. Otherwise
they just sleep on the sidewalk. Most of the women are
single parents and family bread winners although their
families often don't know what they are doing for a
living. They usually end up with those who pimp them or
with the drug pushers as partners. They also have health
problems as they are very vulnerable to STDs and other
stress-related illness because they are on the streets
from 7 at night until 6 or 7 in the morning. There is one
area in Cubao where a "gimmick" (they don't call it
"work") runs 24 hours.

Graphic: Women
Empowering Women, CATW-AP, 1993

The women also face problems of
violence from sexual to verbal and physical abuse from
passers-by and customers. One woman was beaten up by
teenagers with a baseball bat. She was hit on the face and
now she can't move her jaw.

Another serious problem for women on
the streets is the police. Street walkers in the
Philippines are arrested for vagrancy. Although there are
lots of vagrants in the streets, the police arrest only
the women. Vagrancy carries 2 to 4 months in jail. Many
have experienced miscarriage because the police just shove
the women inside their cars. There are also women who were
hit by speeding cars while trying to avoid arrest.

Most of the time, the police ask for
"grease" money — usually about 200 pesos from each woman.
We ask the women why they risk their lives, why not just
give the police 200 pesos. But the women say, "We can give
one of them 200 but there are 4 to 7 policemen from
different stations going around every night."

In the street, violence is not only
experienced by women in prostitution. Our project staff
also experience some harassment from police and
passers-by. We have been pushed around by the police and I
was once kicked in the butt by a policeman who was drunk
and had no name tag on his uniform. Oftentimes we don't
bother to file charges because we don't know their names.
The government recently ran drug tests on policemen and
found many who tested positive. Men in general see women
in the street as prostitutes. They think every woman has a
price on her head. One of our project workers was an
Australian and men asked us how much she cost.

Graphic: Women
Empowering Women, CATW-AP, 1993

There are also problems with drug
addiction. Most of the women are into drugs like the
so-called "poor man's cocaine" (shabu) and
solvents. In the street you can also see another form of
prostitution - young boys who exchange solvent for sex
with girls as young as ten.

There is also trafficking in the
streets. There was a woman who was trafficked and sent to
Malaysia through the back door. She was put in a brothel
but was able to escape. There is also internal trafficking
in women. In the area where we work, there are lots of men
recruiting women to go to Angeles City.

Because of their experience, it is not
surprising that these women have very low self-esteem.
What our project is doing, is to help them put up a
nurturing organisation for the women, run by the women.

In doing that, we organise and visit
the women on the streets in our van where we can serve
coffee and chocolate. That van also serves as a resting
place for the women especially during the rainy season.
Sometimes the van is a refuge from the police. We also
give services to the women - condoms, counselling and
education. We help them to access legal services at no
expense if they want to file complaints.

We also give training on alternative
health care because medicines are very expensive in the
Philippines. For the services we can't provide, we network
with other organisations for medical services, free
check-ups and at-cost medicine.

Once a week our group visits women in
jails. Inside, we conduct more structured education
sessions which last several days and focus on general
health, STDs, reproductive health, women's situation,
violence against women and other women-related topics.

And we have a publication so that women
who are not coming to the van can be reached with our
bi-monthly newsletter. The women are really active through
the newsletter. They write about their problems and ask
advice.

The program now needs a drop-in centre.
During the night, it is very hard for the women to talk to
us because it is their time to get some money for a
living. A drop-in centre could also serve as temporary
shelter for women and their children. There was a case of
a 47 year-old former prostituted women with three
grandchildren and two daughters who are now also in the
prostitution system. She locked the kids in a motel room
but she was arrested. It was Friday night, and as there
are no court proceedings during the weekend, she was not
released until the Monday night. It was fortunate that the
room boys heard the cries of the kids and got them out.

Graphic: from Ibong
Malaya, RCPC and Kapatid, Hong Kong, 1981

Extracts from the
seminar in Brisbane Sept. 25th

Cecilia Hofmann spoke
about global trafficking of women:

Many issues that are women's concerns
today are being situated in a human rights framework. A
lot of issues are being understood as violations of the
very basic principles of human rights and we have been
discussing whether prostitution and trafficking in women
can also be understood in this way.

We produced a map for the World
Conference of Women in Beijing which shows the trafficking
of women in the Asia-Pacific region. But trafficking is a
phenomenon that is not confined to this region. For
example, there is a lot of trafficking of Latin American
and Caribbean women into Europe as well as into the
Asia-Pacific region. Mexican women were found in brothels
in Japan. Colombian women have been reported in brothels
in Thailand. There are also African women being trafficked
into Europe.

In our map Central Europe and Russia
also figure. Because of political upheaval and economic
dislocation, these women have been put into very
vulnerable situations. They are prey to recruiters and
traffickers and have been turning up in the region. A few
years ago there were women from the Ukraine in Manila, in
high-class, luxury men's entertainment clubs. There have
been Russian women in Thailand, in Hongkong, in Macau, in
Japan and, I believe, here in Australia.

Very often it is women of colour who
are trafficked. But there are white women who are also
trafficked and absorbed into what is today a global
industry. Any woman in a vulnerable situation anywhere,
will be at risk of either being recruited, persuaded, or
even kidnapped for the purpose of trafficking.

Trafficking is not a new phenomenon.
Some of you may know the term "white slavery" which
referred to the trafficking of European women in the 19th
century. White women from Europe sometimes
disappeared and then were found in brothels in the
colonies in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. But
since those days, there has been a North/South divide and
today it is women from the countries of the South that are
particularly at risk. Although, just a few years ago,
there were white Australian women advertised at one of the
luxury clubs in Manila where they had a performance of
very sexualised entertainment.

Graphic: Against All
Odds, published by Isis International and Kali for
Women, 1994

There is a lot of written material, a
lot of research, and many organisations are particularly
concerned about the situation for women in some countries.

Bangladesh is a country often beset by
natural calamities and its people are very poor. It is a
country where women experience an incredible amount of
violence. In Bangladesh, acid throwing is very common. If
a young girl spurns a suitor, he will get angry, follow
her in the street and throw acid on her face. If a husband
suspects his wife of any misdemeanour, acid throwing is a
favourite form of violence. Unfortunately it is being
"exported" and there are now cases of acid throwing
reported in Egypt.

Women have it so bad in Bangladesh that
they can be persuaded to follow recruiters and sometimes
to marry men who say they will take them to Pakistan. But,
when they get to Pakistan they are often sold to carpet
weavers who want free labour and a sexual slave on the
side. There is information that in Pakistan women and
girls who have been trafficked in from other areas are
still sold in clandestine auctions.

Burma is another country where there is
a lot of trafficking. People are trying to flee a very
oppressive and illegal regime. There is recruitment for
work and the girls often end up in brothels in Thailand,
in the border areas, and in Chiang Mai. In 1994, Asia
Human Rights Watch published a book on the modern forms of
slavery which discusses the trafficking of Burmese girls.
They were held, confined in brothels and there was a case
of 19 Burmese girls who tested positive for HIV. The Thai
authorities sent them back over the border into Burma and
reports are that the Burmese authorities gave them lethal
injections.

Nepal has an economy and a geographical
location where people are in a situation of economic
distress. Recruiters go to mountain villages and persuade
families to part with their daughters by offering them
jobs in India. Their families receive money - a year's
wages for girls of 13 or 14 years-old. They are told that
their daughters will find jobs in factories or in
households but, in fact, what happens is that the vast
majority of these young girls end up in brothels in the
six major cities of India. It is huge business and at any
one time there might be 20,000 girls from Nepal in India.

Just two months ago, we had the
opportunity to go to Bombay and actually see the
conditions with our own eyes. There is a section of the
town with maybe 2,000 brothels in very simple, small
houses, lined up one after the other like rabbit warrens.
Women stand out in the streets all day and all night while
the buyers cruise around making their choice.

There are programs for women in
prostitution in Bombay. One is the project of a religious
order headed by Sr. Rogini Fernandez. Sr. Rogini told us
that the new arrivals of 13 to 15 year-olds are a really
pitiful sight as they beg her to take them away. When
there are new girls, the word spreads around and that
brings the clients in for the chance to use bodies that
may not yet be infected with HIV or some other disease. So
these girls are in great demand. Apparently, for the girls
to tolerate their lives in the brothels, they are given
drugs and closely watched because given any chance, they
will run away. These young girls are not among the women
standing out on the streets. For the first two to three
years, they will be kept confined and guarded inside the
brothels. But after two or three years, these young women
will stand outside and will no longer run away.

Graphic: Against All
Odds, published by Isis International and Kali for
Women, 1994

The questions we ask are: What has been
done to them? What has happened? Have these women now
chosen prostitution? Have they now accepted being there?
One of the main points under discussion in the
international debate is: "If women opt for it, then should
prostitution be accepted as an act of choice?"

The reason why we in the Philippines
are concerned about this issue is that Filipino women
unfortunately figure prominently in this map. Filipino
women are also trafficked in the region. They are in
Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan and Korea because of the US
bases there.

In May this year, a conference was held
in Okinawa about military prostitution. The Okinawan women
presented documentation they have been carrying out since
the 1950s on violence against women - rape, murder and
battering - committed by military personnel. In the
Philippines we are again concerned about military bases
because the United States is pressuring our government to
allow US Navy access for R&R and military exercises in
twenty-two ports. Although we thought it to be an issue of
the past, military prostitution might be an issue of the
future again for us.

Another group trafficked in the region
are women from Thailand. We have information that Thai
women were brought into New Zealand and kept in a
situation of debt bondage working off the costs their
traffickers had incurred, like their airfares. They even
had to pay for their board and lodging in the brothels!

The business of trafficking is a
low-cost high-profit operation for the traffickers who are
often syndicates. The export of Filipina entertainers to
Japan is estimated at 150,000 per year and the involvement
of Japanese crime syndicates has been undeniably
demonstrated.

In some cases trafficking is not
organised by syndicates, just individuals who see good
business. In the Philippines two years ago, there was a
couple - a Filipina with a German husband. They recruited
eight young women to work in a restaurant in Lagos,
Nigeria. The young women from a province north of Manila,
never heard of Lagos, Nigeria. They saw this German
husband and they expected to go to Germany. The papers
were all fixed for them and they never had to do a thing.
They were escorted through the Philippine airport by an
official in uniform. They were told to go through a
particular immigration counter where they were whisked
through to the plane. They arrived in Lagos at 2 in the
afternoon thinking, "This doesn't look like Germany." An
Egyptian woman who met them at the airport said, "I paid
$21,000 for each of you to work for me." By 6pm that
evening, they were taken to work in a club that offered
women to mixed clientele - Asians, Filipino seamen,
Europeans and local men. We are currently working on this
case. Seven of those women have come back to the
Philippines, some with children. One woman has gone
missing. She was last reported to have been seen
drug-addicted on the streets of Abidjan, in the Ivory
Coast. There is now a court case against their
traffickers.

Graphic: Against All
Odds, published by Isis International and Kali for
Women, 1994

Trafficking is being addressed today in
a lot of United Nations general assembly resolutions, in a
lot of conferences. But, there is no debate about
trafficking as a crime against women, children and
sometimes boys. There is debate on prostitution. At least
four different theoretical positions on prostitution have
emerged. The two main positions are: (1) prostitution is a
human rights violation of all women, not just the women in
prostitution, and; (2) prostitution is work just like any
other job, it is a service sector, an employment for women
under certain conditions.

If prostitution has become such a big
phenomenon worldwide, it is because prostitution is very,
very profitable. In 1995, some data from Australia talked
about 30 million dollars being generated by prostitution
in Australia. In Japan in 1995, prostitution generated
profits equivalent to the defence budget. In 1995 in
Thailand, prostitution generated profits of between 18 and
21 billion dollars, or slightly over half the national
budget. Pornography alone in the U.S. is thought to
generate about 12 billion dollars a year. We see
pornography as the propaganda arm of prostitution.

Many women are in prostitution because
they don't have options or because among bad options it is
sometimes one of the better options. But, why are our
economies so designed that women only have bad options?

In 1995, we sent a researcher to
Thailand from the Philippines and that person was really
surprised to see how much more prosperous and developed
Thailand is than the Philippines. On the other hand, she
was also very surprised to see how much more prostitution
of women and children there is in Thailand. But, if
Thailand has developed economically, then presumably there
are more jobs, and presumably women have more economic
options. So, it must be the case that women do not
participate in economic development. There must be
structures that exclude or disadvantage women, and they do
not compete on an equal basis with men for the profits
from economic growth. Another factor is the infrastructure
of prostitution in Thailand, the link between military
bases and prostitution, for example.

The link between militarism and sexual
exploitation is one that has been discussed in many
studies. Aggression against women is sometimes stimulated
deliberately in some military cultures. For example,
during the Falklands war and the Gulf war, military
personnel were given a regular diet of pornographic
videos. There is a link between aggression against women
and aggression against all kinds of other enemies.

Graphic: Against All
Odds, published by Isis International and Kali for
Women, 1994

For us it is very important to include
prostitution in the continuum of violence against women
because prostitution is often overlooked in many
discussions. Sometimes it is more than an oversight,
sometimes there are interests that would have prostitution
de-linked from violence against women in general.

Another issue being discussed is the
sexual abuse of children. Is child sexual exploitation so
qualitatively different that we accept those same things
happening to women? For us, this divide of child/adult is
artificial. We believe that prostitution will exploit
anyone who is vulnerable - children, young women, grown
children. Shall we say that if they are under age it is a
crime, but when they are 18, and they are still in
prostitution, it is their choice? The issue of child/adult
is very problematic because it creates categories of
acceptable and unacceptable prostitution. We also have to
understand that the clients are seeking younger and
younger women whose vulnerability and powerlessness is an
attraction. The legal age does not tell you anything about
vulnerability. The legal age is just a legal cut-off
point. It tells you nothing about the social realities of
young women over 18 who are every bit as vulnerable as
children of 14 or 15.

Another issue is that of consent. Is
the women's consent the key in deciding whether
prostitution is a human rights violation or not? Western
liberalism has raised individual will and consent to its
highest value and is overlooking social impact. For us,
prostitution is not just about individual women,
prostitution is about the status of women, it is about the
humanity of women, it is about the exploitation of one
group of human beings for the profit and use of another
group of human beings. We are really looking at a class,
gender, and race situation.

Cecilia Hofmann is the Secretary of the
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific. She
is active at local, national, regional and international
levels, and has been called upon by UN meetings to provide
expert input on the issue of prostitution and trafficking
in women.

After many years of work with migrant
Filipino organisations in Europe, in particular
Switzerland, she returned home to the Philippines in 1989
as head of the Gabriela Commission on Violence Against
Women (GCVAW). There she became heavily involved with
Buklod Women's Centre, which worked with prostituted women
in Olongapo. Today she is chairperson of Buklod, and
continues to be instrumental in the campaign for the
rights of Fil-Am (Filipino-American) children.

Following GCVAW, she worked with the
Women's Education, Development, Productivity and Research
Organisation (WEDPRO), again with a strong focus on women
in prostitution. At present she continues this commitment
with her work at CATW-AP. She has also played a key role
in SIBOL, a women's initiative developing feminist
legislation that received national prominence for its role
in furthering the Rape Bill currently before the
Philippine Government's congressional bicameral committee.

She is respected by local grassroots
activists and international experts alike. She sits on the
boards of three of the main grassroots organisations
working with women in prostitution: BUKLOD, WEDPRO/Nagkakaisang
Kababaihan and BUKAL (Bukluran ng Kababaihan sa Lansangan).

Cecilia was instrumental in organising
the 1995 Campaign Against Sex Tourism and Trafficking in
Filipino Women exposure/study tour, and impressed many of
the Australian participants with her commitment, knowledge
and ability to articulate dynamically and clearly the
issues involved in prostitution.

In my discussions with her we
identified some focus areas for a tour. Obviously,
prostitution is her prime focus, and within this we felt
it would be valuable for her to talk about the way
prostitution operates internationally, and the impact the
prostitution debates in the West have on countries such as
the Philippines. This includes issues such as whether
prostitution is work or a human rights violation,
prostitution as empowerment or prostitution as violence,
etc.

MELVIE GALACIO

Melvie Galacio is the coordinator of
the Bukluran ng Kababaihan sa Lansangan or BUKAL, a
grassroots organisation working with women in street
prostitution in Quezon City, Metro Manila.

Melvie has a rich background in
grassroots community development. She has worked with
women workers within the Philippine union movement, then
in women's health and AIDS education, and now with women
in prostitution. She is also a skilled healer with a
strong interest in traditional medicine: she practices
acupuncture and teaches Chinese healing techniques.

Melvie is a founding member of BUKAL.
With a small team of three, she works with women and
children in street prostitution. Street prostitution is
dangerous and violent in the Philippines, and there are
few services for the many women it exploits. BUKAL offers
non-judgemental and empowering services.

BUKAL works on the streets and in
prisons, creating relationships with women who try to
survive the brutal prostitution industry. Much of their
work is carried out in their mobile centre, a passenger
van fitted with coffee and tea facilities, condoms and
educational comics. The mobile centre provides a place for
the women to simply rest or talk about their problems. The
BUKAL team provides informal counselling, and links women
to legal, health and other counselling services. BUKAL
also offers popular education, in the prisons and in other
venues. Often this is the first time for women to tell
their stories and begin to process the violence and abuse
they have experienced. BUKAL seeks to affirm the women's
stories, look with them at the structural issues that
exploit them, and develop concrete ways to change their
situation.

Through this work, Melvie has a deep
awareness of the day-to-day struggles of women in street
prostitution. She brings both an acute understanding of
the destruction and pain in these women's lives, and a
powerful belief that the women can experience a life where
their humanity is affirmed and valued.

BUKAL is funded by the Australian
Government's AUSAID programme, and another Australian
organisation, APHEDA, has also committed to fund the
project. Melvie and her team have had ongoing contact with
Australians visiting their project and they were also
intensely involved in organising the
Philippines-Australia-Aotearoa Campaign Against Sex
Tourism study tour in 1995.

A speaking tour with Cecilia Hofmann
and Melvie Galacio will bring together vast international
experience and powerful grassroots involvement.